Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi of Iran
Exile: Egypt, dead

A reformer installed by Allied forces wary of his predeccessor’s ties to Germany, the shah, shown in 1939 with his fiancee, Princess Fawzia of Egypt, was a close ally of the West throughout his years in power. Buoyed by oil wealth, he exercised absolute authority in the country, employing a secret police to suppress dissenters and holding lavish ceremonies to celebrate the monarchy. After several protesting students were killed by army forces, resistance to the Shah’s regime swelled, culminating in the return of Ayatollah Khomeini. Early in 1979, the shah fled Iran. He died in Egypt in 1980 at the age of 60.
(Fox Photos / Getty Images)
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Anastasio Somoza Debayle of Nicaragua
Exile: Paraguay, dead

The son of Nicaraguan president Anastasio Somoza Garcia, Somoza Debayle was the acting commander of the National Guard before his father was assassinated. He became president in 1967 and brutally fended off assaults by the Marxist Sandinista National Liberation Front. After a hostage standoff with the guerrillas, Somoza Debayle, shown in 1978, instituted a state of siege, souring relations with the United States. As the country spiraled into revolution in 1979 , he took refuge in Paraguay, where he was assassinated in September 1980.
(AFP - Getty Images)
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Idi Amin of Uganda
Exile: Saudi Arabia, dead

Amin, a military leader who overthrew Uganda’s president in 1966, is thought to have been responsible for as many as 400,000 deaths during his eight-year reign. An eccentric and callous dictator, he reportedly engaged in cannibalism, and he demanded to be called “Big Daddy.” The U.S. stopped the flow of aid to Uganda in 1972; a few years later, Amin, shown in 1975, allegedly collaborated with Palestinian hijackers who held Israeli airline passengers hostage in an attack. He was ousted by Tanzanian forces and Ugandan exiles in 1979. He died in Saudi Arabia in 2003.
(Sigurd Bo Bojesen / AFP - Getty Images)
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Jean-Claude Duvalier of Haiti
Exile: Haiti, alive

Known as “Baby Doc,” the Haitian dictator has recently been charged with corruption and embezzlement stemming from his 15-year rule. Tens of thousands of Haitians are thought to have been executed during the 30-year period when he and his father, “Papa Doc” Duvalier, ruled the desperately poor nation. Despite his brutal regime –implemented with the aid of a private police force -- his opposition to communism generally won him the backing of the United States until the Reagan administration pressured him to step down in the mid-1980s. He lived in exile in France for almost a quarter-century before a stunning return to his homeland after the earthquake that rocked it last year.
(Bachrach / Getty Images)
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Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines
Exile: Honolulu, dead

Marcos, an authoritarian ruler who presided over almost a decade of martial law in the Philippines, jailed his political opponents and suspended habeas corpus during the 1970s. As an early defender of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, he enjoyed the backing of the U.S. government for much of his presidency until the Reagan administration rolled back its support. After his re-election in February 1986, his supporters were accused of massive voter fraud, and Marcos, shown announcing a state of siege in February 1986, fled his homeland. He was indicted by the U.S. government on racketeering charges, but he died in exile in Honolulu in 1989 at the age of 72 before the case came to trial.
(Toledo / AFP - Getty Images)
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Alfredo Sroessner of Paraguay
Exile: Brazil, dead

Sroessner – who dubbed himself “El Excelentisimo” – ruled Paraguay for more than three decades after he came to power in a 1954 coup. A government characterized by corruption and payoffs made the country a safe haven for arms dealers and smugglers, and dissidents were frequently tortured. Stroessner, shown in 1955, was an anti-Communist who supported U.S. involvement in Vietnam, and his brutal policies went largely unchecked by American officials who only occasionally spoke out against his tactics. He was ousted in a bloody military coup in 1989 while he was recovering from surgery; he died in Brasilia in 2006 at the age of 93.
(AP)
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Erich Honecker of East Germany
Exile: Santiago, Chile, dead

Honecker oversaw the building of the Berlin Wall before coming to power as the leader of East Germany in 1971. Citing health problems but also losing support from the Soviet Union in the years of glasnost, the Communist leader stepped down after 18 years in power amid massive protests against his administration. After the reunification of East and West Germany in 1990, he was arrested on charges of treason and manslaughter; the trial was never completed, and Honecker, shown leaving the Chilean Embassy in Moscow in 1992, fled to Chile, where he died in 1994 at the age of 81.
(- / AFP - Getty Images)
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Hissen Habre of Chad
Exile: Senegal, alive

Habre was supported by the United States and France in driving Libyan forces out of the disputed Aozou territory in the 1980s. During his eight years in power, Habre, shown in 1986, stifled opposition from ethnic groups; political prisoners held in his police force’s detention centers were allegedly tortured with electric shocks, starvation and burns. Habre was forced from power in 1990. His government is accused of carrying out tens of thousands of politically motivated killings. He lives in exile in Senegal.
(Dominique Faget / AFP - Getty Images)
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Mengistu Haile Mariam of Ethiopia
Exile: Zimbabwe, alive

After helping to overthrow the Ethiopian monarchy, Mengistu, shown in 1977, was responsible for the deaths of thousands of intellectuals and professionals during the “Red Terror” years in the 1970s. He attempted to mold the country into a communist state in the style of the Soviet Union, which gave billions of dollars in military aid to Ethiopia in the 1980s. He fled to Zimbabwe after his regime was overthrown in 1991.
(- / AFP - Getty Images)
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Raoul Cedras of Haiti
Exile: Panama, alive

Army chief Gen. Raoul Cedras served as the de facto ruler of Haiti in the early 1990s after leading a coup to overthrow President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Under pressure from the United States, which was poised to invade the country if he did not step down and allow Aristide to return to power, Cedras resigned in 1993 in exchange for amnesty for himself and his family. Cedras, shown in 1993, lives in exile in Panama.
(Mark Philips / AFP - Getty Images)
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Mobutu Sese Seko of Congo
Exile: Morocco, dead

A dictator known for his trademark leopard-skin hat, Mobutu ran a regime so corrupt that it gave rise to the term “kleptocracy.” His personal wealth has been estimated at as much as $5 billion. Like other anti-communist despots of the time, he benefitted from American backing because he was seen as a key ally against Cold War enemies. But Western leaders largely dropped their support for him after he ordered a massacre of students, and he was eventually driven from power in 1997 after a militia backed by neighboring Rwanda trounced government forces. He died in exile in Morocco in September 1997 at the age of 66.
(COR / AFP - Getty Images)
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Charles Taylor of Liberia
Exile: Nigeria, alive

Taylor was elected president of Liberia in 1997 after leading a guerrilla force that toppled the regime of President Samuel Doe. During his rule, he reportedly sold weapons and supplies to rebels in neighboring Sierra Leone in exchange for diamonds. Under pressure to step down by the Bush administration, Taylor, shown in 1990, resigned in 2003 and flew to Nigeria. He is on trial in The Hague, Netherlands, on war crimes charges linked to his backing of the insurgents in Sierra Leone.
(Francois Rojon / AFP - Getty Images)
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Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia
Exile: Saudi Arabia, alive

Ben Ali came to power in November 1987, six weeks after becoming prime minister, when he arranged for president-for-life Habib Bourguiba to be declared senile. He was credited with ensuring political stability, and his portrait adorned practically every shop and public building in Tunisia. But Tunisians chafed under his iron-fisted rule, and soaring unemployment and corruption fueled tension that came to a head in December 2010 when an unlicensed street vendor set himself on fire to protest against the police, who had stopped him from trading. The protests that began after his death spread to other towns and eventually the capital, and Ben Ali was forced to flee on Jan. 14. It was unclear whether Saudi Arabia would allow him to stay.
(Fethi Belaid / AFP - Getty Images)
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Hosni Mubarak, Egypt
Exile: Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, alive

Mubarak came to power in 1981 after President Anwar Sadat was assassinated. He was a staunch ally of the U.S., which over the years gave Egypt’s military billions of dollars in aid. But Mubarak’s autocratic rule was marked by widespread repression and poverty, and the nation’s security forces were accused of torture. Inspired in part by the overthrow of the Tunisian government, tens of thousands of Egyptians staged protests demanding Mubarak’s ouster and democratic elections. After 18 days of mostly peaceful demonstrations, Mubarak stepped down on Feb. 11, 2011, and fled to the Egyptian luxury resort of Sharm el Sheikh. He vowed that he would not be forced into exile outside of the country, saying he would die on Egyptian soil.
(Khaled Elfiqi / EPA)
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